Russian & Eastern European Area Studies Program

The Russian and East European Area Studies Program, established in 1968, offers an interdisciplinary minor in the former U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. It prepares students for graduate study and careers in the field, gives students with roots in the region an understanding of their heritage, and provides any student knowledge of an important and rapidly changing part of the world.

Students must demonstrate proficiency in Russian or another language of the region and take twelve hours of specified courses in language, history, and political science plus twelve hours of electives in the field. Students have combined a REEAS minor with majors in Russian Studies, International Studies, Political Science, History, Mathematics, Biology and Business. The program frequently sponsors lectures, exhibits and other events.

Graduates have gone on to positions with the National Security Agency, the CIA, and military intelligence, as Russian teachers, Slavic librarians, or in international business or law. They have done graduate study in the field at Columbia, Ohio State, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Georgetown, Pittsburgh, George Washington, and the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Many have studied or worked in the region: language study in Russia and Poland, at a Russian orphanage, a Russian summer camp, and a Catholic parish in Vladivostok, Siberia.

Others have taught English in Moscow, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia. Two studied in Poland and one in the Russian Federation on Fulbright Scholarships, and one in the Soviet Union on an IREX grant.

Candidates should begin Russian language study as soon as possible. We are the only university in the region that offers a Russian Studies major.